Game Culture Festival to begin this Friday at Everland featuring exhibitions and esports

The Game Culture Festival (GCF) is set to kick off this Friday, the Korea Creative Content Agency (KCCA) announced on Monday.

Poster of Game Culture Festival [KOREA CREATIVE CONTENT AGENCY]

The Game Culture Festival (GCF) is set to kick off this Friday, the Korea Creative Content Agency (KCCA) announced on Monday.

Hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in collaboration with the KCCA and the Samsung C&T Resort Division, the festival will run for 10 days at Everland, a popular theme park and zoo in Yongin, Gyeonggi.

The festival aims to foster a healthy gaming environment where people of all ages can engage with one another through games and discover new opportunities for enjoyment.

A slew of game-related activities, including storytelling-based mission games, exhibitions and experience zones of various intellectual properties, an amateur esports competition and cosplay, will take place at the festival.

This year’s activities will be hosted in three main areas: the Global Fair, Rocksville and the Esports Experimental Zone.

The Global Fair, located near the park entrance, will feature game exhibitions and interactive experience zones, while the Esports Experimental Zone, near a hurricane attraction, will host the amateur esports competition, GCF League.

A mission game, titled Connect! Gotam Expedition: Call from the Future, will run both online and offline at the Global Fair until Oct. 6, and at Rocksville until Oct. 20. Participants will embark on a quest to find clues with the mascot Hotam in order to save the game world, with various Hotam merchandise available as rewards for successful players.

A cosplay parade is scheduled for Saturday afternoon, featuring participants dressed as iconic characters from League of Legends and Valorant who will march from the Global Fair to the Esports Experience Zone.

Competitions in popular games like Valorant, League of Legends and Tekken 8 will be featured in the GCF League, with the final matches starting on Oct. 4. These matches will be streamed live on the KCCA’s official YouTube channel.

“This event aims to foster communication among all generations, and this year’s will be more plentiful than ever,” the KCCA's acting director Yoo Hyun-seok said in Monday's press release. “In the future, the KCCA will continue to promote a healthy gaming culture by spreading the cultural and aesthetic values that games offer.”

BY WOO JI-WON [woo.jiwon@joongang.co.kr]